A MAN who carried out a “brutal and prolonged” attack on his girlfriend and her young daughter has been jailed for eight years.

The crown court at Leamington heard Christopher Higgins, 25, who has a history of attack on girlfriends, kicked and punched his partner and hit her with an iron before punching her toddler and tearing out clumps of the little girl’s hair.

Higgins, of Clarence Street, Nuneaton, pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm on his girlfriend with intent and causing grievous bodily harm to her daughter, who was then aged two.

Prosecuting, Lal Amarasinghe described the case as “a brutal and sustained incident of unprovoked domestic violence”.

About three weeks before the attack in November last year the couple, who met at work, had decided to live together.

But after Higgins had been out drinking with friends, he launched an unprovoked attack on his girlfriend as she lay in bed.

He punched her several times to the face as she struggled and begged him to stop. The attack continued for about ten minutes, with him kicking and punching her, before he stopped and appeared to be remorseful.

But after the woman went downstairs with her daughter, Higgins followed her to the kitchen where he took a carving knife from a drawer and left the room, saying he wanted to kill himself.

When he came back and saw his girlfriend on the phone to the police he became enraged and launched another brutal attack, punching her and the toddler several times and tearing clumps of hair from the little girl’s head.

He also used an iron to hit his girlfriend with such force that it broke.

When she tried to hide in the bathroom Higgins followed and repeatedly banged her head on the floor as she curled up with her body wrapped round her daughter to protect her as Higgins pulled more of the girl’s hair out.

When he finally stopped, she escaped from the house and went to her mother’s home nearby and the police were called.

The woman suffered cuts to her head, a swollen eye and bruises all over her body while her daughter had a fractured rib, 30 bruises, cuts and abrasions and had to be kept in the high dependency unit at hospital.

Meanwhile, Higgins caught a train to Wrexham where two days later he called the police saying he had hit his girlfriend with an iron and had taken an overdose.

He was arrested and said he could not remember what he had done but said his girlfriend would not have lied.

“The aggravating features are that there are two victims, and one was a child of not yet three; both were injured and the child had a serious injury; there was the use of a weapon, the iron; it occurred in the home; and you have previous convictions and two of those victims were partners of yours.” When Higgins is released he will spend nine years on licence.